MindBullets is a part of the global FutureWorld Network, constantly sensitive to changes in the technological, economic, social, political and business landscape.
The MindBullets Contributors scan this rapidly changing environment for clues about possible future trends.
The results of this synthesis are combined by our contributors into an on-going series of MindBullets: News from the Future - with a summary emailed to you every Thursday and the complete MindBullets data base available online to explore each scenario in more detail.
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It just ain't the global web anymore

Dateline: 4 May 2023

It started with certain sites being blocked to protect regimes and minimize dissent. But it wasn't long before we saw the blackout of the Internet in whole nations, for days. Now we're heading for the splintering of the Internet into multiple networks with so much bureaucracy involved, we'll likely run out of red tape.
In 2016 there were 75 Internet shutdowns globally. Within a year it rose to 108 and in 2018 almost 200 disruptions took place. Governments wanted to safeguard themselves from their ...

African government outsources its citizens to Alipay

Dateline: 1 April 2024

They say history never repeats itself - but it sure does rhyme.
In a move that can best be compared to the way large parts and populations of Africa and India were divided up and dished out to the management of private firms, such as the British and Dutch East India companies in the 17th and 18th centuries; Zimbabwe's embattled military government has decided to delegate the governance of its citizens to the Chinese tech giant, Alipay.
Under the new deal, Zimbabwean citizens will each be ...

The gig economy fails to deliver the dream

Dateline: 7 April 2024

The freelancers wanted to be free, so they went their own way. The corporate rebels quit their cubicle jobs and threw off their chains. The entrepreneurs were born to answer the call of independence. Going it alone, however, was much more daunting than many realized.
Since 2008, trend and research reports started proclaiming that "the Japanese model of lifelong employment is dead!" By 2022, more than half of the US workforce was made up of freelancers. For a while it went well, as the consultants ...

Tycoon's family in feud with his avatar wife's lawyers

Dateline: 1 February 2034

Dr Akihiro Miaku the famous Japanese tycoon who died earlier this year under mysterious circumstances (rumoured poisoning) is back in the headlines, after his will was leaked to the press by a disgruntled, anonymous, family member.
Dr Miaku, who had significant business interests in the Japanese renewable energy sector, was revealed to have left his entire 3 billion Yen (27.5 million USD) fortune to his wife - a hologram nicknamed Suzi.
The eccentric billionaire married his hologram wife 11 ...

As lifespans get longer, China invests in a population control 'solution'

Dateline: 1 July 2033

As everyone knows, expected lifespans have increased dramatically over the last ten years. According to top genetic scientists, a 100-year-old today can expect to live until 150. That's fantastic, unless you are the government that has to foot the bill to keep all these geriatrics alive, healthy and well-fed. Although people may well be able to live until they are 150, since most people still retire at 75, the elderly are becoming an unaffordable burden on the state, and the society compelled to look ...

Printed bio solar cells are greening the city

Dateline: 3 January 2028

We've had vertical gardens and basement farms for some time now, in our cities, but now landscaping has taken on a whole new dimension. With 3D printers and bio-engineered shrubs and trees, terraced gardens and leafy lanes can be laid out by the robots, straight from the architect's designs.
What's more, genetically altered algae are used to construct bio solar cells that form part of the leaf structure, harvesting solar power from panels that look and act like, well, leaves - nature's very own ...

Startups as dissertations are remaking economies

Dateline: 28 March 2025

What students need and what society needs, is not a PhD thesis in the form of 200-400 pages of new analysis, but rather the results of an applied trial in the real business world. It's a no-brainer, right?
You'd think so, but it took hundreds of student protests around the globe and a US$ 3.5 trillion defaulted student loans crisis in the US; but now the world can finally see that startups should be the new dissertations.
In 2018, the Indian Institute of Technology announced that they would ...

Did New Zealand Customs official leak info from traveller's phone?

Dateline: 7 June 2019

Very few people expected that the New Zealand law, which allows customs officials to inspect and copy data on travellers' digital devices, would still be enforced months later. The only alternative is for the passenger to pay a hefty fine, but how is that really different from a bribe? Right from the start, with the new law introduced in October last year, human rights groups have been up in arms, but this week the wider world took notice as well.
A highly agitated male, sweating profusely, was ...

Favours increasing state intervention to realize development goals

Dateline: 15 March 2020

"Existing economic theories are incapable of meeting the needs of the future, and we need an economic transition, away from neoclassical economics and market capitalism," said the latest Sustainable Development report. In other words, capitalism and free markets are not good enough to guarantee prosperity for the people of the world. According to the UN.
This position is bound to stir up heated debate from all quarters. No one can argue with the fact that democratic market economies and global trade ...

China and America reap the AI dividend

Dateline: 3 December 2030

In the last 15 years, we have witnessed the stunning rise of an exponential technology - machine learning and artificial intelligence. Like Moore's Law on steroids, smart machines and computer systems have created entirely new global industries, turbo-boosted productivity, and destroyed old, industrial age business sectors.
The Economist, now a purely digital research and analysis house, estimates the 'new value' created by this phenomenon at over US$ 19 trillion globally. But a full 70% of this ...

The Free Republic of Liberland has grown from an eccentric community of radical libertarians into a diplomatic force to be reckoned with, in the 15 short years since it was founded.
The small sovereign state, which occupies a seven square kilometre area of disputed territory between Croatia and Serbia on the west bank of the Danube river, now boasts almost five million citizens. Many of Liberland's citizens are Bitcoin billionaires and millionaires who have use their citizenship to hide their ...

Mind-reading tech worn by employees is alienating customers

Dateline: 1 May 2024

Lisa Chen's mother always said that Lisa's whole spectrum of emotions is reflected on her face. Regardless of whether she's angry or ecstatic, Lisa has always been unable to mask what she's feeling. She always felt bad about it, until now.
Back in 2018 it came to light that firms in the electronic equipment, power supply and telecoms industries were using sensor-fitted hats and helmets to measure their workers' levels of stress, anxiety and depression. Based on the data, employers adjusted shifts ...

China's social credit score system forms an impenetrable virtual barrier

Dateline: 5 February 2020

Dubbed the "WiFi Curtain", China's mandatory social credit score system, which went live last month is shaping up to be the 21st Century's answer to the Iron Curtain.
Chinese citizens trying to escape the restrictive system, which punishes bad behaviour by limiting access to top jobs, credit and other perks, have realized that they are now effectively trapped inside the new, invisible Chinese Wall. A particularly poor social credit score completely prohibits citizens from traveling by air, or ...

Nordic nation runs out of money for UBI program

Dateline: 24 November 2029

Six years after voting to implement a universal basic income (UBI) of 5,200 Swedish Krona per citizen, Sweden has applied for an International Monetary Fund bailout. "UBI has bankrupted us!" said Jarl Johansson, spokesperson for the Swedish National Debt Office (Riksgälden).
The first-of-its kind national UBI scheme pays every Swedish resident over the age of 13, regardless of working status and formal citizenship, a monthly living wage. The program was hailed as a progressive social success when ...

Government tries to follow the money

Dateline: 1 February 2021

Now that the bulk of the so-called 'capitalist political economy' operates on digital platforms and through digital channels, it's inevitable that government wants more influence and control. But will it work?
In the aftermath of the dotcom boom, everybody wanted more access and better networks, and it wasn't long before broadband came to be regarded as a basic human right. Wireless networks and smartphones connected everyone else, and suddenly the whole world was on the 'net!
Sure, some ...

Ringing in the changes ahead of schedule

Dateline: 29 December 2020

There's something significant about 1/1/21. Maybe it's just the symmetry of the numbers that has got everyone excited; remember Y2K, and all that fuss over nothing? Well, now that this millennium is turning 21, there's another hullabaloo. Like we're all suddenly adults.
Whatever the reasons, all over north America people are planning a double New Year's party, and both 31 December and 1 January are public holidays. They'll be saying a nostalgic farewell to 2020, a year that promised and brought so ...

In today’s modern cityscape, there are no streets or cars

Dateline: 19 October 2028

We live in a strange new world. Odourless aftershave. Wheat-free bread. Virtual assistants. Pointless pastries, devoid of sugar, made with boosted broccoli from basement farms, yet deliciously popular. And cities without streets.
China's latest planned urban extravaganza, a megalopolis known as Yuyuan or 'Harmony Garden', isn't built around roads and streets. The walkways and thoroughfares linking the multiuse 3D-printed buildings can accommodate pedestrians, ebikes and hoverboards. Jogging and ...

Millions relocated to Latin America as superstorms wreak havoc

Dateline: 23 September 2023

Celia Estefan broke down and wept as she stepped onto the runway in Sucre, Bolivia. She is the last person evacuated from Cuba and marks the end of an appalling and heroic six-year migration of 44 million people from the Caribbean to new lives all across Latin America.
"It is just in time," says Miriam Gomez of Mexico's National Hurricane Centre. "We've just upgraded Hurricane Franklin to Category 5, and we have Gert, Harvey and Irma right behind him. There is no way anyone will be able to live on ...

Black-market organ transplants performed by microbot

Dateline: 6 September 2027

The WHO (World Health Organization) predicts an increase in illegal surgeries and black-market organ transplants because of the increasing capability of medical microbots. They are designed for patients to swallow, as if it were a pill made out of digestible enzymes. Fitted with tiny microblades or needles, they quickly move to clean blocked arteries, detect disease and treat cancer. Microbots are also useful for delivering medication to specific parts of the body and addressing hormone or metabolic ...

The internet of everything exposes all our faults

Dateline: 9 August 2020

There's an old adage of mobsters everywhere: "You're only guilty if you get caught!" Now it seems that everyone is guilty.
Who can say they've never, ever committed a crime? Perhaps you cheated on a tax expense, or told a little white lie that made you look good; maybe you embellished your resume - just a bit - or left out a part of your history when you told all to your spouse-to-be.
Probably most of us have exceeded the speed limit on occasion, or perhaps smoked or drank something we legally ...